HATTIESBURG — On Saturday versus Rice, Southern Miss' running back room looks like it's going to be testing whether addition by subtraction is a real thing.

Southern Miss has had one of the most tepid rushing attacks in the country in 2018, ranking 117th out of 130 FBS teams in yards per carry with only one rushing touchdown, and it belongs to fourth-string quarterback Tate Whatley. But changes are coming. Senior T'Rod Daniels is out, announcing his intent to transfer on Tuesday. Fellow senior George Payne is still injured and freshman Darius Maberry isn't quite 100 percent yet, but he's getting there.

That leaves three backs to shoulder the responsibilities that six men were expected to handle in fall camp. Senior Tez Parks will likely remain the starter, but he'll be spelled by a pair of freshmen: Trivenskey Mosley and Steven Anderson.

"Trivenskey’s a guy that, again, he’s had a good couple weeks and I think he’s just getting better and better," USM coach Jay Hopson said on Tuesday. "Steven Anderson’s a guy that I think you’ve seen Steven Anderson run low and he’s running behind his pads. So those two guys are really doing some good things."

Neither Anderson nor Mosley carried in the Golden Eagles' Week 2 loss against UL-Monroe, despite the fact that the two freshmen combined for 82 yards on 16 carries Week 1 against Jackson State.

After the ULM loss, USM offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said he expects to handle his running back room differently moving forward, saying he was open to reorganizing his personnel and getting some of his younger backs some looks. On Tuesday, Parks said he doesn't feel as if the running back room has made changes in practice since the loss, but rather he's noticed a renewed focus on being coachable and using each day as an opportunity to get better.

Because Parks isn't deaf. No one in the running back room is. They hear the criticisms. They're just trying to rise above them.

"There's a lot of people out there saying 'Southern Miss can't run the ball. Southern Miss can't block,'" Parks said. "We can block. We can run the ball. We're just having miscommunications and stuff like that. So we're not worried about the outside noise that's going on right now. That's irrelevant. We just keep it between us in the room.

"I love everybody in that room. I trust everybody in that room if they get in the game to do good. And I trust them enough that if I come out and they go in that we have no worries."

Anderson echoed a similar attitude. He said that through the first two weeks of the season, he understood his role was as a backup to Parks and Daniels. So when it came to gamedays, Anderson said he looked at his job as being the best and most supportive teammate possible.

Still, Anderson said he and Mosley have tried to make the most of their time at practice, working hard to get better at the little things. After all, Dawson said the reason he was cautious to put younger running backs in the game early was because he wasn't sure how well they understood the blocking schemes and patterns compared to the veterans ahead of them on the depth chart.

Anderson acknowledged that those are the hardest parts of the game to master. As a converted quarterback who's only been playing in the backfield for a year, he's new to everything. But he said he started to feel comfortable in the spring, and everything really clicked for him in the fall.

"You've really got to learn the ins and outs of what your offensive line is doing," Anderson said. "Anybody can get the ball and just run. But you've got to run to where your blocks are at. So following the blocks and stuff like that and knowing what the offensive line is doing is the hardest part."

One thing harder for Anderson and Parks might be handling Daniels' absence. Hopson said Daniels came to him with the news on Monday. When asked for his reaction to the news, Hopson said that his job as a coach is to give opportunities to the players that have earned them and he singled out Mosley as a player who deserved extra reps over the last two weeks.

Parks, a close friend of Daniels', reacted from the more human perspective.

"When I heard it, I was like 'Dang.' I was more upset than anything," Parks said. "We don't want to lose nobody, no matter what the deal is, we don't want to lose nobody. But we have to take it for what it is. We have to move on. Can't dwell on what happened because if we just sit back and dwell on what happened then we'll fall back into a trap we don't want to be at. Now guys just really have to step up. When your number's called, you've got to step up and go."